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Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by Veggie by Season!

This blog was formerly A Year in the Kitchen. When I began blogging, the intention was to chronicle my first year in the kitchen as a married gal. I had so much fun that it lasted three wonderful years.

My life has changed a lot in those three years though, and so has my blogging style and content. I was a former vegetarian for 7 years, but began a bit of meat again in college and for two years post graduation. I began phasing it out of my diet, and went back to being a vegetarian for life.

I invite you to read the About the Author page for more information about me and my blog, just click on the link above!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Last fall, one of my co-workers, Cindy, began reading the Twilight series. She eventually talked the 3 of us into reading the series, and we were all hooked. For about 2 months, we were talking about Twilight 24/7!

Cindy's birthday was December 31, and Vickie wanted to get a carboard cutout of Edward to put in the office, but it wasn't going to be shipped on time. Vickie told me about it, and I said how about we do it on Valentine's Day.

Well the ideas snowballed, and we decided to have an all out Twilight themed Valentine's Day party. We surprised Cindy with it, and it was so much fun.

In this post, I'm going to have directions to make the Twilight cake, which has many elements, and took me all week to make (but could probably be made in one marathon day)!

To plan the perfect Twilight party, we had the cutout, a cake, cookies, apples with caramel and chocolate dip, "Blood" punch, then for decorations we had red, black and white balloons, red and while tulips (like the New Moon cover), banners with the Twilight font, and we listened to the Twilight soundtrack all day.

So here is how to make the cake, with the cookie decorations, fondant, icings, cake, filling, and assembly.

This post will be LONG, with lots of photos!

Twilight Cake!

I made this cake over 4 days, each day I did a part of it, taking about 3 hours each day.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cream butter and sugars in a mixer for 5 minutes.
Add in eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly.
Add in vanilla, almond, and lemon zest.
Beat for 10 seconds.
Add in baking powder and salt, beat again.
Add in flour 1 c. at a time, mix for 15 seconds between each addition.
Do not over mix, this process should take about one minute.
Chill dough for up to a week in the fridge, or roll out and cut right away.
Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet for about 7 minutes, or until golden brown on the bottom.

This recipe made about 50 cookies - I made 6 small sized of each cover icon (3 total cookies, on sticks, sandwiched), and 4 large to give away to my co-workers. Then I also made 16 skinny hearts (8 total cookes on sticks)

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer).
NOTE: Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency.

I put half the icing in one container, left white, and the other half in another container, and dyed it red with Christmas Red gel food coloring.

I filled bags with each icing, then piped the outside edges of each cookie.
I made sure the bags still had lots of icing in them, then I added a few TBSP of water to the containers holding the icing so I could use it to flood the cookies. You want it to be like maple syrup in consistency.

I like to use squeeze bottles to fill my cookies, it's easier to control the flow.

To make the tulips, I filled them with white, then made 3 stripes of red with the flooded red in a squeeze bottle. I used a toothpick to make the red run like feathers.

Since the apples and tulips have a few elements, I left them with just the icing. With the ribbon and chess pieces, since they're somewhat plain, I used sanding sugars to give them a bit more dimension. Make sure you sprinkle them right away or the icing will dry and it won't stick.

It's optional to pipe leaves on the apples, they don't need it, but it does add some color. Use folled fondant to make the stem (which we'll make later...) Here are the final cookies with the cooresponding books. Let the cookies dry overnight to harden.

I made Chocolate Frosting for the cake on night 2, here is the recipe:

I covered this cake in Chocolate Rolled Fondant. I used my white chocolate recipe, but subbed in dark chocolate candy melts and some cocoa powder. It cracked much easier than the white chocolate fondant, but it tasted much better!

Step 1: Melt the chocoalte chips in the microwave or over a double boiler, stir in the corn syrup, set aside so it cools. It should form a pasty dough.

Step 2: Put 3/4 of powdered sugar and cocoa powder in the bowl of a mixer, make a well in the center. Set Aside.
Step 3: Mix water, glucose, vanilla, salt, and shortening together in a saucepan. Heat until shortening is almost melted.

Step 4: Pour into the well of powdered sugar, use dough hook and mix until incorporated, about 4 minutes. Add white chocolate mixture to mixing bowl a tablespoon full at a time, until incorporated.

Step 5: When mixture is too hard to mix, take it out and turn on a powder sugar dusted surface, knead in the remaining powdered sugar.

Wrap very tightly in plastic wrap, then place in a ziplock bag. It will get somewhat hard, but kneading it will loosen it up. Use within a month. (Do not refrigerate)

I made a Red Velvet cake with creamcheese filling for the Twilight cake. I used this recipe.

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside.
In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix oil, sugar, and buttermilk until combined. Add eggs, food coloring, vinegar, vanilla and water and mix well. Add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time and mix on low, scraping down sides occasionally, and mix until just combined. Be sure not to over mix, or the batter will come out tough.

Line 2 8" and 2 10" cake pans with parchment and spray with nonstick spray.

Pour batter into 1 8" and 1 10" pan. Make another batch and fill other pans.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Cool for 10 minutes, invert and cool until room temperature.

Cream Cheese Filling:

1 8oz. brick of cream cheese

1 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 c. milk

Cream together all ingredients, beat until smooth.

Use a serrated knife to level out cakes. Fill with creamcheese filling, then ice with chocolate buttercream.

I don't know how I didn't catch this in my google reader but I'm so bummed I didn't. I would have totally made this for a Twilight DVD party. Guess now I'll just have to make some cookies for a New Moon party!

can i just say that this cake and cookies are the most ADORABLE and creative things i have ever seen!? you are such an inspiration to bakers and chefs everywhere! i have shown the pics of your cake to all my best friends and family (all of whom are HUGE Twilight fans!) and they all have gushed over it. I plan on creating my own cupcakes for the New Moon premiere this fall and I am going to use your cake recipe and some of your decorating ideas as a spring board for mine! I will be sure to post a link to pics of my creation :) thanks again for being so detailed in your recipe and pictures, much appreciated and I ADMIRE you so much!

I just made a batch! They were yummy, but kind of puffy. It was hard to 'flood' the icing. The icing would run off because of the puffy tops of the cookies. Did the butter need to be softened? Room temperature? Melted?

the butter should be room temperature. it's very important that you cream the butter and sugar thoroughly, and then the eggs should be incorporated thoroughly. also, you might want to add more flour next time, and make sure your dough is chilled when you roll and bake the cookies. don't put them on warm cookie sheets, and make sure they're cut thick. email me if you have any more questions! asyearinthekitchn@gmail.com

About Me

I am a 20-something accountant by day and home cook/blogger by night! I love trying new ethnic cuisine, but also enjoy classic, home cooked fare. I spend most of my free time with my husband watching sports, playing with my dog, and cooking and baking.